This guide is built from the officially confirmed details for Forza Horizon 6 — the 2025 Tokyo Game Show reveal, the January 22, 2026 Developer_Direct, and the studio's own breakdowns — as catalogued on the Forza Wiki. Where something is a known design feature it's stated plainly; where exact in-game values vary by your own save, that's flagged. Promotional images are official Playground Games / Xbox Game Studios assets, edited for this guide.
What is Forza Horizon 6?
Forza Horizon 6 (FH6) is the sixth main entry in Playground Games' open-world arcade-racing Horizon series, built with assistance from Turn 10 Studios and published by Xbox Game Studios. After Australia, the UK, and Mexico, the Horizon Festival heads to Japan.
It launched on May 19, 2026 for Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC (Microsoft Store & Steam), Steam Deck (Verified), and Xbox Cloud Gaming, and arrived day one on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass. A PlayStation 5 version follows later in 2026 — the first time the series has shipped on PlayStation. Players who bought the Premium Edition got a four-day head start from May 15.
If you're just booting it up, this guide walks you through the world, the progression system, every event type, the car and customization systems, and the smartest way to spend your first few hours.
The setting: a reimagined Japan
FH6's open world is a fictionalized Japan that compresses the country's most iconic geography into one drivable map. Two real anchors are confirmed: Mt. Fuji and Tokyo — the latter described by Playground as "one of [its] most detailed and layered environments to date." Around them the map spans distinct biomes the studio has shown off: an alpine region, the coast, highlands, lowlands, and open plains.
Seasons are back
As in Forza Horizon 4 and 5, the world cycles through spring, summer, autumn, and winter. In FH6 the team went further than visuals: seasons "subtly shift tone, activity, and sound," changing how each region feels and what's happening in it. Snow gathers in the Alps in winter; the plains and coast transform in summer. Practically, this means the same road can drive very differently from one in-game week to the next — and some events and leaderboards reset with the season.
Getting started: the progression walkthrough
FH6 deliberately starts you small. Unlike recent entries where you arrive as a superstar, here you begin as a tourist exploring Japan — not a Horizon legend, not even a rookie yet.
Here's the path from your first drive to the endgame:
- The Tokyo City introductory race. Your opening drive runs through Tokyo. Completing it also triggers your Loyalty Rewards (more on those below) — any cars you've earned from previous Forza games drop into your garage for free right after.
- Pass the qualifier. Before you can officially join the Horizon Festival you must complete a qualifier to prove you belong.
- Climb the ranks and earn Wristbands. From there you progress by racing faster and faster cars, earning Wristbands as you move up the tiers.
- Clear a special event after each round. Each time you rank up you complete a marquee event — a Showcase (the series' signature race-against-a-spectacle set pieces) or a Horizon Rush event — to prove you're ready for the next stage.
- Earn the Gold Wristband → unlock Legend Island. Reaching the Gold Wristband opens Legend Island, an exclusive region with its own special events, areas, and the Legends Island Circuit. This is your high-end endgame playground.
Walkthrough tip: don't tunnel-vision the campaign. Wristband progress comes from doing a variety of events well, so treat the early map as a sampler — try a road race, a dirt event, and a stunt — and lean into whatever your starter car suits while you save credits for a more flexible all-rounder.
Every event type, and how to approach it
FH6 keeps the series staples and adds several Japan-flavored modes. Knowing what each one rewards helps you steer your progression.
- Touge Battles (new). Night races down a Japanese mountain pass. These are technical, grip-and-nerve duels rather than top-speed blasts — bring a balanced, well-tuned car and learn the corners. Expect tight margins.
- Horizon Rush (new). Skill-showcase events built around obstacles and chained challenges. Playground designed them to be replayed "over and over," so they're a reliable, repeatable source of progress.
- Spec Racing Championships (new). Single-make/spec races where everyone runs the same setup, so results come down to driving rather than your garage's depth — great for leveling the field.
- Time Attack. Open-world circuits where you chase the best lap. Leaderboards are filtered by car class and are not permanent — they reset every season, so they're worth revisiting for fresh competition.
- Showcases. The cinematic "race a plane/train/spectacle" set pieces, slotted in as milestone events between progression rounds.
- The Eliminator (returning). The battle-royale-style elimination mode where you find cars, win head-to-head challenges to upgrade, and survive a shrinking arena.
- Hide & Seek (returning). A lighter social mode of cat-and-mouse across the map.
Walkthrough tip: Time Attack and Horizon Rush are your best "I have 15 minutes" activities — short, repeatable, and class-filtered so you're always matched fairly.
Car Meets and Drag Meets
Car Meets return from Forza Horizon 3 as open-world social hubs. At a meet you can show off your cars and characters, and download other players' Tunes, Liveries, and even full copies of their cars, then head out to explore and compete together. There are three meet locations: one at the Horizon Festival itself, one toward the Alps at the Okuibuki parking area, and one at Daikoku.
Drag Meets are the open-world drag-racing counterpart: up to twelve players, a synchronized start tree, and in-game leaderboards. If you like building for straight-line launches, this is your scene.
Walkthrough tip: before you sink credits and time into tuning, visit a Car Meet and download a top-rated community tune for your car. It's the fastest way to make an early-game vehicle competitive while you learn the upgrade system.
Cars, classes and customization
FH6 ships with over 550 cars — sports cars, off-roaders, hot hatchbacks, kei cars, and dedicated time attack machines. A few systems are worth understanding early:
- Performance Index (PI) overhaul. The PI system was rebalanced for better parity within each class, and there's a new top class, "R," for track-focused cars. Pay attention to PI when you build — staying just under a class ceiling (e.g., the top of A or S1) is the classic way to dominate class-restricted events.
- Deeper customization. New bodykits, new Forza-created parts and aerodynamics, the ability to put stickers and liveries on windows, and — finally — different rims front and rear.
- Forza Edition & Aftermarket cars in the world. Special Forza Edition and Aftermarket cars sit parked at fixed spots around the map, buyable at a discount versus the Autoshow. Hunting these is a smart, cheap way to grow your garage.
- Cars that feel alive. Tire tread wears as you rack up miles, new acoustic modeling makes engines sound truer, and steering animation now shows a full 540 degrees of wheel rotation.
Walkthrough tip: spend your first big credit windfall on one flexible A-class all-rounder rather than a single hypercar. Most early progression events sit in lower classes, and a well-tuned A-class car will clear more of the map than an expensive S2 you can barely keep on the road.
Houses, The Estate, EventLab and the Collection Journal
- Player Houses. As ever, seven properties around Japan can be bought as your home base. New this time: each house has a customizable garage you can decorate and stock with display cars, invite other players into, and even share for the community to download.
- The Estate. A standout addition — a property where you build on an empty plot directly in the open world. Your creations are permanent and visitable by others. Each placed item costs credits but refunds if you remove it, so you can experiment freely.
- EventLab. The custom-event/track creator returns with upgrades: start building anywhere on the map, and build with up to 12 players together in a "Horizon CO-LAB."
- Collection Journal. A discovery tracker — collect and find cars, tracks, landmarks, and mascots to earn stamps. A good prompt to go exploring rather than only racing.
Walkthrough tip: buy your first house for the fast-travel and garage convenience, not for prestige — pick one central to where you're racing most.
Loyalty Rewards: free cars for returning players
If you've played earlier Forza games, FH6 hands you their cover cars for free, dropped into your garage after you finish the Tokyo City introductory race. (You need to have played the prior game; Forza Horizon 4's McLaren Senna is the one exception, as it wasn't in FH6 at launch.)
| If you played… | You receive |
|---|---|
| Forza Horizon | 2013 Dodge SRT Viper GTS |
| Forza Horizon 2 | 2014 Lamborghini Huracán LP 610-4 |
| Forza Horizon 3 | 2016 Lamborghini Centenario LP 770-4 |
| Forza Horizon 4 | 2016 Aston Martin Vulcan |
| Forza Horizon 5 | 2021 Mercedes-AMG ONE |
| Forza Motorsport (2023) | 2024 Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray |
Walkthrough tip: finish that intro race before doing anything else — these free cars (the Mercedes-AMG ONE in particular) give you a serious head start over buying your way up.
Editions, pricing and pre-order bonus
| Edition | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | $69.99 | Base game only (this is the Game Pass tier) |
| Deluxe | $99.99 | Base game + Car Pass + Welcome Pack |
| Premium | $129.99 | Everything at launch: Car Pass, Expansion 1 & 2, Time Attack pack, Italian Passion pack, VIP Membership, Welcome Pack — plus 4-day early access |
Pre-ordering any edition granted an exclusive, pre-tuned Ferrari J50.
Platforms and PC system requirements
FH6 supports cross-play and cross-save across PC and Xbox, and — for the first time — cross-save between Xbox, Steam, and PlayStation 5.
On console, you choose between a 30 FPS Quality mode and a 60 FPS Performance mode (Series X targets 4K in both; Series S targets 1440p Quality / 1080p Performance). On PC, FH6 adds enhanced ray-traced reflections and global illumination, uncapped framerates, ultrawide support, wheel support, and upscaling via DLSS 4, FSR 3+3, and XeSS 2.1.
| Tier | CPU | RAM | GPU | Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Minimum | i5-8400 / Ryzen 5 1600 | 16 GB | GTX 1650 / RX 6500 XT / Arc A380 | 1080p, Low, 60 FPS |
| Recommended | i5-12400F / Ryzen 5 5600X | 16 GB | RTX 3060 Ti / RX 6700 XT / Arc A580 | 1440p, High, 60+ FPS |
| Extreme | i7-12700K / Ryzen 7 7700X | 24 GB | RTX 4070 Ti / RX 7900 XT | 4K, Extreme, 60+ FPS |
| Extreme + RT | i7-12700K / Ryzen 7 7700X | 32 GB | RTX 5070 Ti / RX 9070 XT | 4K upscaled, Extreme RT, 60+ FPS |
An SSD is required at every tier (NVMe for the top two), on Windows 10/11 22H2+ with DirectX 12 and a broadband connection.
Beginner tips that pay off fast
- Use the new Quality-of-Life tools. FH6 adds an Auto Drive feature (pick a destination and let the car take you there) and a proximity sensor that flags nearby cars — handy in dense Tokyo traffic. There's also a customizable high-contrast mode for accessibility.
- Chase Forza Edition / Aftermarket cars parked in the world for discounted upgrades to your garage.
- Download community tunes and liveries at Car Meets instead of grinding the upgrade menus from scratch.
- Lean on seasonal resets. Time Attack leaderboards wipe each season — a fresh chance at a top-ranked time and the rewards that come with it.
- Build under the class ceiling. With the rebalanced PI, a car tuned to the top of its class beats an under-tuned car from the class above in restricted events.
Frequently asked questions
Is Forza Horizon 6 on Game Pass? Yes — it's available day one on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass at the Standard Edition tier.
Is it on PlayStation 5? A PS5 version is coming later in 2026 (post-launch). At release, FH6 is on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC (Microsoft Store/Steam), Steam Deck, and Xbox Cloud Gaming.
Where is Forza Horizon 6 set? A fictionalized Japan, with confirmed locations including Mt. Fuji and Tokyo, plus alpine, coast, highland, lowland, and plains biomes — and full four-season cycling.
How many cars are in the game? Over 550 at launch, spanning sports cars, off-roaders, hot hatches, kei cars, and time-attack machines, with a new track-focused "R" performance class.
Do I get free cars for owning older Forza games? Yes. Cover cars from Horizon 1–5 and Forza Motorsport (2023) are granted free after the Tokyo City intro race (Horizon 4's McLaren Senna excepted at launch).
What does pre-ordering give me? An exclusive pre-tuned Ferrari J50.
The bottom line
Forza Horizon 6 takes the series to Japan with its most detailed world yet, a back-to-basics "earn your place" progression built around Wristbands and Legend Island, a stack of new Japan-flavored events like Touge Battles and Horizon Rush, and creator tools — The Estate and co-op EventLab — that go deeper than ever. Finish the Tokyo intro for your loyalty cars, sample every event type to climb the Wristband tiers, grab community tunes at Car Meets, and build smart under the new Performance Index. The road to Legend Island starts the moment you land.
All trailers above are official; promotional imagery is courtesy of Playground Games / Xbox Game Studios.